Acclaimed director Werner Herzog was born on Sept. 5, 1942 in Munich, Germany, near the epicenter of WWII’s most extreme warfare, and the conflict christened him. During a 2009 interview, he explains that his mother moved their family from Munich to a small, isolated Bavarian village for safety reasons - when he was about 10 days old – “because a bomb had hit right next to our place.”
Seventy-eight years later, one could accurately describe Mr. Herzog as fearless. Perhaps his bold, adventurousness spirit points back to that aforementioned incident, when a fiery explosion nearly killed him before he reached his second week of life. In honor of the man who faced an active volcano (“Into the Inferno” (2016)), explored ancient caves (“Cave of Forgotten Dreams” (2010)), pulled a steamboat over a Peruvian mountain (“Fitzcarraldo” (1982)), and much more, let’s celebrate his birthday with a Werner Herzog double feature.
Herzog makes documentaries and feature films with seemingly-equal frequency, and although we could look back at countless choices, here are a pair - one from each genre – that are perfect companions. “Little Dieter Needs to Fly” (1997) and “Rescue Dawn” (2006) are about Dieter Dengler, an American (and German-born) Vietnam War Purple Heart recipient and POW. When approaching these movies, I recommend watching the feature “Rescue Dawn” first, and then absorb the documentary “Little Dieter Needs to Fly”. The viewing order isn’t critical, but knowing Dengler’s story is.
“Rescue Dawn” (2006) – U.S. Navy Flight Lt. Dieter Dengler (Christian Bale) is aboard the U.S.S. Ranger in the Gulf of Tonkin during the Vietnam War. The young lieutenant hasn’t seen any fighting yet, but his commanding officer (Marshall Bell) gives him and his fellow pilots the order to fly into Laos and attack supply lines. In a horrible turn of events, anti-aircraft fire guns down Dengler’s plane…on his very first mission. Somehow, he miraculously survives the crash and runs for his life in the brutal heat to avoid capture. Alas, the local aggressors catch him, like a dozen cats chasing a slower mouse, one without a clue about nature’s traps in this jungle maze.
The majority of Herzog’s 120-minute picture features Dengler caged in a Viet Cong compound constructed of bamboo, but the guards keep our protagonist and five other prisoners (two Americans and three Thais) in a small fenced-pen during their excruciatingly long days and nights. Like other Vietnam prison pictures – such as “The Deer Hunter” (1978) and “Missing in Action 2: The Beginning” (1985) – mental torture, physical exhaustion, and inhumane rituals are unwanted items on the prisoner-of-war-menu for these fatigued, malnourished hostages.
Steve Zahn and Christian Bale in ‘Rescue Dawn’ (2006)
Dieter mostly converses with Duane (Steve Zahn) and Gene (Jeremy Davies), and they are especially convincing as poor souls tossed off a train of sanity and into a wilderness of madness. Perhaps off-camera, Duane and Gene regularly howl at the moon but only after politely asking for permission. Yes, for Dengler, escape is imperative to avoid a similar fate.
Released in 2006, “Rescue Dawn” lands in between Bale’s Batman performances in “Batman Begins” (2005) and “The Dark Night” (2008). Here, he also plays a charismatic leader, but a non-violent, optimistic one. The guards haven’t eroded Dieter’s hopeful outlook, and his beaten-down cohorts might become believers too.
Meanwhile, our navy man’s appearance deteriorates, as if Batman slowly – like hands moving on an analog clock – morphs into Trevor Reznik from “The Machinist” (2004), so there’s no denying Bale’s dedication to the role. Werner devotes most of his shoot in a beautiful Southeast Asian locale, and their camp sits below a towering, mystical butte that one might find in a “Lord of the Tropical Rings” flick. Reportedly, the cast and crew didn’t have trailers during the filming. This trip was no vacation, and based on Dengler’s real-life experience, this all seems uncomfortably fitting.
(3.5/4 stars)
“Little Dieter Needs to Fly” (1997) – One of the most anticipated aspects of Werner Herzog’s documentaries – at least to this critic - is that the man narrates them. His one-of-a-kind cadence, German accent, and word choices with welcomed consonant-staccato blend into an industrial, otherworldly verbal chaperone throughout his docs.
“Little Dieter Needs to Fly” is no exception.
After the film’s first minute, we see Dieter Dengler driving along an empty, winding road in foggy Northern California.
Werner recites, “Men are often haunted by things that happened to them in life, especially in war or other periods of great intensity. Sometimes you see these men walking the streets or driving in a car. Their lives seem to be normal, but they are not.”
Dieter Dengler in ‘Little Dieter Needs to Fly’ (1997)
Talk to anyone on the front lines of life – coping with marital strife, substance or alcohol abuse, mental illness, financial insecurity, or something else within this family of troubling circumstances - and the struggle to maintain normalcy can be painfully genuine. Dieter – an outgoing and gracious 59-year-old – seems to have lived nearly six decades of relative benign routine, but we soon learn about his six-month nightmare in a Viet Cong prison camp and the post-traumatic stress afterward.
While this documentary features Herzog’s commentary, it’s a co-narration because Dengler recounts his story throughout the gripping 72-minute runtime. In effect, these two German men capture forever in film this courageous pilot’s life narrative.
Born in 1938, Dieter saw Deutschland reduced to rubble, and our director adds, “Germany had been transformed into a dreamscape of the surreal.”
On the other hand, this very same conflict led to Dieter’s dream. As a small boy, he saw an Allies pilot fly by with his plane’s cockpit open. This young German junge suddenly struck a chord with destiny.
“I had one burning desire, and that was to fly,” Dengler says.
As an adult, he left for the U.S. to become a pilot, but not one of war. He solely wished to operate aircrafts, but his travels eventually led to the events in 1966. The doc mostly focuses on – sometimes with hefty emotional force – Dieter’s capture and subsequent torture in painstaking detail. Even further, this 50-something duo also travels across the Pacific to reinforce this terribly disturbing and equally heartbreaking episode of personal collateral damage.
At one point, Dieter comments, “This feels a little too close to home.”
Yes, Dengler bequeaths his time to make another – albeit much smaller – sacrifice for this movie, but he does so with his friend, his German brother, and they lend their voices together.
(3/4 stars)
Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic. Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.
